8 New Posts at Goliath.com

I’ve been writing some list-based articles for Goliath.com lately. It’s a site focused mainly on pop culture, movies, TV, and gaming, but it also has news, sports, tech and the like; there’s a lot of cool stuff on it. While I can’t reprint the material here, I can link you to it, which is almost as good. Here are the articles I’ve done so far:

• 10 Thoughts About Daredevil
• 5 Great Comic Book Movies
• 5 Terrible Comic Book Movies
• 12 Times Jimmy Fallon Dominated Our News Feeds
• The 10 Most Iconic Cars from Movies
• 10 Comics You Should Be Reading Right Now
• The 10 Most Quotable Movies of All Time
• 10 Movie Moments that Made You Spit Out Your Popcorn

A World of Flavour

Chef Ibrahim Ghozlani serves up a cultural blend.

Experimentation is the name of the game at Bistro Narra.

The kitchen staff, led by Chef Ibrahim Ghozlani, is always eager to try new combinations to see what their clients enjoy, or what they might not.

“Mississauga can be a tough crowd, because it’s so diverse,” says Ghozlani, “but that doesn’t stop us from trying new things. Our annual tasting menu, which collects all our experiments throughout the year, allows us to be mad scientists, in a way. For example, we’ll do things like molecular gastronomy—nobody expects a restaurant in Mississauga to be doing that. It’s a lot of fun.”

Located in a plaza in the Churchill Meadows neighbourhood, the cozy yet upscale restaurant offers classic European fare, but with a twist, as Ghozlani brings with him several other culinary influences beyond the French cuisine he was trained in. After graduating from the Culinary Arts School of Ontario in 2004, he lived and worked in Toronto, Montreal, Dubai and Amman, Jordan (and had his own restaurant there), before moving to Mississauga. Somewhere in there, he also found the time to get married, spend three months on honeymoon in Italy, and subsequently fall in love with Italian food.

“I’m from Jordan, so I add some Mediterranean and Arabic influences in my cooking,” he says. “But I’ve lived in many different places, and each new country I’ve worked in has exposed me to different ingredients. I love combining all these influences in ways that are fun and modern. You can always find a new fruit or vegetable you haven’t seen before—you just have to travel!”

Ghozlani enjoys working with seasonal ingredients, and changes the menu accordingly; whiteboards listing the restaurant’s ever-changing daily specials help illustrate his desire to keep it interesting. His philosophy? “Respect the ingredients,” he says. “Every item on the plate needs to shine on its own, and the dish must be balanced.” We got to try one of his dishes during our visit—this philosophy is paying off.

So what’s next for him? “I’d like to have my own restaurant again,” he says, “but I’ve only just returned to Canada. I need to give it a few years to better understand the local palate—that’s why I keep changing the board. I want to get as much feedback from our clients as I can.

“And in the future, I see myself going back to and retiring in Italy… but that’s a long way off!”

RECIPE: SURF ’N’ TURF

“This is my take on surf ’n’ turf, with organic beef loin, roasted bone marrow and snow crab claws. It’s currently my favourite dish to cook at Bistro Narra.”
—Chef Ibrahim Ghozlani

INGREDIENTS

• 6 oz AAA strip loin steak
• 1 bone marrow, 6-inch, split lengthwise
• 2 snow crab claws
• 1 Yukon Gold potato
• 1 asparagus spear
• 1 slice prosciutto Parma
• 2 cups red wine
• 2 fresh thyme sprigs
• 2 fresh bay leaves
• dollop of butter
• 1 fresh rosemary sprig
• salsa verde (see separate recipe below)

METHOD

For bone marrow

1. Soak marrow in cold water for 12 hours in refrigerator; change water after 6 hours.
2. Remove from water and roast in convection oven at 320°F for 20–30 minutes.

For crab claw

1. In a small sauce pot, add butter, fresh thyme sprigs and bay leaves.
2. Poach in butter for 7 minutes.

For strip loin steak

1. Season meat with salt and fresh-cracked black pepper.
2. Grill to desired doneness.

For prosciutto crisp

1. Place a slice of prosciutto between two sheets of parchment paper on a baking tray and bake at 400°F until crisp; about 5–7 minutes.

For potato fondant

1. Using a paring knife, shape potato into a 1.5-inch cylinder and place in a small sauce pan; cover with chicken stock or water.
2. Add a dollop of butter and a sprig of rosemary; bring to a boil and then lower heat to a simmer until all water has evaporated and potato starts to brown from the bottom.

For red wine glaze

1. On low heat, reduce 2 cups of good quality red wine to 3 tbsp (should be the consistency of syrup); about 20–30 minutes, but keep an eye on it after it reduces by three-quarters.

For asparagus

1. Drizzle asparagus with olive oil and season with salt and pepper; grill (though you can substitute for any veggie you like).

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SALSA VERDE

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 tbsp capers
• 3 gherkins
• 1 fillet anchovies
• 1 bunch parsley
• 1 bunch basil
• 1 bunch mint
• 2 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 1 cup olive oil

METHOD

1. Add all ingredients to food processor and blitz for 2 minutes on high.

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PLATING

1. Place bone marrow in the centre of the plate; prevent bone from rolling by anchoring it to the plate with red pepper salsa or whatever you like.
2. Place potato fondant on one end of the bone and crab claws on the other; arrange slices of meat in the centre. Place asparagus on top of potato.
3. Top the sliced meat with salsa verde.
4. Place prosciutto crisp at an angle for height.
5. Drizzle plate with red wine glaze in a circular motion.

 

Bistro Narra
3030 Thomas St., Unit A404
905-567-8555

(Originally posted on mississaugalife.ca; recipe originally posted on urbaneats.ca. The print version originally appeared in Mississauga Life, issue 30, 2015; the PDF of that is available here.)

Decked Out

How marina residents got blazing-fast Internet.

There are 37 slips on the F dock at the Port Credit Harbour Marina, and for a long time these residents used Wi-Fi to gain access to the online world. Since April 2014, some of them have found a better solution through the good people at Fidalia Networks: fibre-optics.

“The trouble with Wi-Fi,” says Shaun Rossi, manager at Fidalia, “is that it’s difficult to get proper blanket coverage. It’s only as strong as its weakest link and there can be interference and distance issues. Much of the old Bell Canada copper infrastructure at the marina has decayed, and there’s no co-axial infrastructure so Rogers isn’t an option, either. We came up with something better.”

Fibre-optics is the best technology available today when it comes to high-speed connectivity. It’s immune to interference, it’s generally not sensitive to distance, and it’s seldom affected by weather. The trade-off is that it’s a wired medium; you still have to plug it in. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing—many among the technologically adept, including Rossi, will tell you that wired is the way to go.

“Basically, if you want the fastest Internet in Mississauga, live on a boat,” he says.

How it Works
Inside the boat is an optical network connection—think of it as a fibre router—with an Ethernet switch and Wi-Fi. A fibre cable runs from the boat to the dock (don’t worry, it’s not dangerous; fibre optics works by transmitting light, not electricity), and plugs into a pedestal at the dock which then goes back to the network aggregation equipment in the building. “Everyone gets their own IP address,” says Rossi. “We’ve set it up so that there’s one fibre connection per subscriber, sort of like a newer string of Christmas lights—if one goes down for whatever reason, it won’t drag along the rest. That also makes it easier for us to troubleshoot problems.”

How Fast Is Fast?
This new set-up at F dock can clock speeds of up to 1 GB/second. Let me put that into perspective for you. If you test your Internet connection speed at home and get, say, 20 MB/second, that’s solid. You could download the average half-hour TV sitcom in under a minute, if your speed is consistent.

This is 50 times faster.

“That’s well over anything the average user would ever currently need in day-to-day use,” says Rossi, “but running optical would give you, for example, perfect Netflix sessions or trouble-free telecommuting or videoconferencing. Distance and latencies can, however, affect speed, so you might not get 1 GB/second all the time, but you’ll still be much faster than most anyone else.”

So… can I switch my house over to fibre, then? “If you wanted to pay $100,000 for it, you could,” says Rossi. “That’s the quote I recently got from Bell. I’d have to place 2.4 kilometres of cable to bring it to my house. Replacing an old copper network with optical would involve construction, municipal consent, a great deal of organization, and customers. You’d have to lay down an entirely new infrastructure. It’s not a trivial feat.”

Fidalia is part of the commercial community at the marina, and has been in business since 2000. They started off by setting up small workgroup solutions and servers for offices and the like, and in 2007 Internet services became a major part of their business. They also offer wide-area networking, cloud services, disaster recovery, IT network management, tech support and telephony.

That said, Fidalia focuses on broadband and network solutions for business. They don’t really do residential, largely because at the moment third-party ISPs like Fidalia can’t access residential-grade optical from private networks like Bell and Rogers. Where they excel is in providing enterprise-class optical networking for medium to large sized businesses, which is available to them through Bell and Rogers.

“It’s a dream of ours to be involved in some sort of neighbourhood-deployed fibre project,” says Rossi. “We’ve got the experience and we deliver Internet services across Canada to lots of different enterprises and business. We know our stuff.”

The F dock project was conceived by Wayne Petryk, controller of Centre City Capital Limited (operator of the Port Credit Harbour Marina for over 36 years). “Centre City has been at the forefront of innovation in the marina business,” says Petryk, “and we wanted to enhance the boating experience for our residents by delivering fibre-optics right to their boats. It was a complex undertaking, but the expertise of Fidalia made it a reality.”

(Originally posted on mississaugalife.ca. The print version originally appeared in Spirit of the City/Mississauga Life, issue 29, 2015; the PDF of that is available here.)

Simple Is Best

Two new chefs are shaking things up at Saucy.

Change isn’t necessarily about fixing something bad; sometimes it’s about improving on what’s already good.

Saucy Restaurant, a Streetsville staple for 14 years and counting, is embracing change in the form of new head chef Alex Aboui and sous-chef Devon Clark. These friendly and enthusiastic young chefs are taking an innovative approach to cooking through experimentation and blended cuisines.

“I don’t have a favourite cuisine,” says Clark. “I like fusion, so I guess I like everything. Every culture has its own unique flavours; I’m really interested in that aspect of cooking so I want to learn everything I can about it.”

“I love picking up ingredients that I know nothing about, figuring them out and creating something cool with them,” adds Aboui. “We have fresh specials every day, where we get to play around and do whatever we want.”

Some examples of those somewhat random-sounding specials include crisp pork belly on a roasted honey-glazed pineapple slice with a balsamic reduction, and a roasted red pepper and asparagus slaw. Or a white fish rolled up and stuffed with cream cheese, lobster and spinach, poached with lemon water and herbs, with a lemon beurre blanc.

This creative and adventurous philosophy is reflected in Saucy’s menu, which includes key lime prawn salad, and fried chicken and waffles, to name a few. “We have a little bit of everything,” says Aboui. “Our restaurant is like something you’d find in downtown Toronto, only it’s close to home. That said, we’re going to have a menu change soon. It’ll be a blend of the old and new.”

Both Aboui and Clark became interested in cuisine at a young age; 18 and 15, respectively. Aboui doesn’t have any formal training; she started as a dishwasher at Saucy and worked her way up. “I don’t know what I’d be doing if I didn’t luck out and get that dish pit job,” she says. “I’d probably still be making burnt toast and runny mac ’n’ cheese!”

For Clark, cooking was a way to get through high school. “I was one of those kids who skipped class, partied, did all the fun stuff,” he says. “One day, one of the chefs from my school talked to our class about his job, and something clicked for me. I asked if he could teach me, and did a co-op there. From there I went to George Brown, worked in a couple of restaurants and now I’m here.”

The chefs share a similar philosophy and style: simple is better. “Over-thinking things just makes it more difficult for yourself, especially when you’re serving 60 or 70 people,” says Clark. “We keep it simple, clean and fresh.”

What’s next for them?

Clark is staying put and learning all he can. “I’d like to open my own place one day. Something with a simple menu, that’s welcoming to everyone. The door’s open, come on in.”

Aboui is interested in teaching; she’s currently helping a friend with a cooking class. “But Saucy is my focus right now,” she says. “Eventually, I’d like to have my own restaurant, too—a tapas place, though not necessarily Spanish tapas—but that’s off in the future.”

“And if that doesn’t work,” she adds with a laugh, “then gourmet toast!”

RECIPE: Potato-Crusted Pickerel with Lobster Pernod Cream Sauce

Elegantly different and delicious!

Ingredients (to serve 1)

• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 cup crushed potato chips (regular)
• 1 fillet (6–8 oz) pickerel
• ½ tbsp garlic butter
• pinch (or as desired) green onions
• pinch (or as desired) basil
• ½ cup cream
• lobster, as desired
• ½ oz Pernod
• 1 tbsp Parmesan
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Method

1. Preheat oven to 450°F.
2. On stovetop, heat vegetable oil over medium heat; just enough to cover the pan.
3. Crust pickerel on one side with potato chips, season with salt and pepper, and sear in pan; about 1 minute.
4. Put pickerel in oven and cook until golden brown, flip; about 5 minutes.
5. While pickerel is cooking, prepare sauce: over medium heat add garlic butter, lobster, herbs and seasoning. (For some extra flavour, add some cooked bacon as well.) Add Pernod to deglaze and then add cream right after. Reduce to one-third; about 2 minutes. Stir Parmesan in. Season with salt and pepper.
6. Spoon sauce over pickerel and serve with steamed vegetables or whichever side you prefer.

(Originally posted on mississaugalife.ca; recipe originally posted on urbaneats.ca. The print version originally appeared in Spirit of the City/Mississauga Life, issue 29, 2015; the PDF of that is available here.)

The 5 Worst Christmas Movies Ever

Take a bite out of these Christmas turkeys.

In this season of selflessness, I decided to subject myself to the horrors of some truly terrible Tinseltown tales so you don’t have to. I do this out of respect for your time, dear reader. Either that or barely repressed masochism.

A shovel to the back of the head would be a mercy after seeing this film.

5. Surviving Christmas
Ben Affleck plays a hotshot executive with a big empty life. His girlfriend dumps him for Christmas/family reasons, so he returns to his childhood home to burn a list of grievances as a form of therapy. He then hires the current occupants to be his family for Christmas. In his eagerness, Affleck appears unhinged, but at least the family is being paid to put up with him—too bad audiences weren’t. But as bad as Surviving Christmas is, it’s Oscar bait compared to the rest of the list.

Now Vince, in this scene I need you to be an annoying jackass. Oh great, you already know your part.

4. Fred Claus
Oh look, Vince Vaughn is playing Vince Vaughn again. What a stretch for this talented and versatile actor. Double-V plays Fred, the brother of Nicholas Claus. Fred, in an oh-so clever twist, is a repo dude who resents his brother. What follows is a plot, I guess, about an efficiency expert threatening to shut down Santa’s operation and move everything to the South Pole. Fred and Nick fight, Fred saves Christmas, the family reconciles and blah blah, yadda yadda. Running at 110 minutes, it’s about 109 minutes too long.

There aren’t enough movies featuring Hulk Hogan doing crane kicks.

3. Santa with Muscles
Hulk Hogan stars as a wealthy jerk who, while fleeing the cops after a little mischief, hits his head and… sigh… gets amnesia. Someone half-convinces him that he’s Santa Claus, so Hogan decides to save a struggling orphanage. But wait—an evil scientist wants to buy the land said orphanage sits on, because beneath it are rare exploding crystals. Seriously. No amount of training, prayers or vitamins will get this movie past its many, many flaws. And don’t get me started on the Brutus Beefcake cameo.

Apparently Martians have figured out interplanetary travel, but not parenting.

2. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
This celluloid disaster was almost number one on the list. Something is wrong with the children of Mars, you see—they’ve forgotten how to be children and have fun. Since they’ve been watching Earth broadcasts about Santa Claus, the Martians decide to abduct him to build toys for their kids. The acting is one-dimensional at best, and the sets appear to be lit by a single overhead light bulb. And wait ’til you see the dude in the polar bear sui—I mean, the polar bear. Where’s Plan 9 from Outer Space when you really need it?

The only time I wished I lived on Alderaan.

1. The Star Wars Holiday Special
I’ve loved Star Wars since I was a kid, and I never thought I would see anything that would sully that trilogy any more than the prequels already have. I was wrong. This is an incomprehensible mess. We meet Chewbacca’s family—Malla, Itchy and Lumpy—who are celebrating “Life Day,” and Chewie is late coming home. The first 20 minutes mostly contain Wookiee growls, a few bad puns and then I don’t know what happens because I couldn’t bear to watch it any further. It’s not just that it’s bad—it’s ruining Star Wars. Worst. Christmas. Movie. Ever.

Not enough, you say? You want more? Well, treat yourselves to some VIDEO:

Surviving Christmas (clip)

Fred Claus (clip)

Santa with Muscles (full movie)

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (full movie)

The Star Wars Holiday Special (full movie)

(Originally posted on mississaugalife.ca. The print version originally appeared in Spirit of the City/Mississauga Life, issue 16, 2012; the PDF of that is available here.)

Christmas Comes Early

Photography by Ulysses Pabuna

The night of December 3 was one full of surprises, the first of which was that I made it to downtown Toronto in record time: 40 minutes. That’s in rush hour, avoiding the Gardiner. Lakeshore was my friend.

The second surprise was dinner at Chipotle—that is, I’m surprised I didn’t spill more of my tacos on my sweater. They’re messy, but good.

The third and by far the biggest surprise was how much I enjoyed the Trans-Siberian Orchestra (TSO). I walked into the ACC that night barely knowing anything about them, only that “they’re awesome,” according to my friend Tom. He’s the fan, he scored the tickets, and he promised me it would be a great time.

He was right.

Now I love me a good concert, and, if you’ve read any of my other reviews, I tend to like my music loud and boisterous, to put it euphemistically. TSO can bring the volume, but there were also many quiet, delicate moments—not that that’s a bad thing. As far as I can tell, TSO tends to tour in winter, or at least they always seem to end up in Toronto in December, so there’s a lot in the way of winter themes both visually and musically. Their albums are often concept albums or rock operas. And they really, really love Christmas. They have three albums that form their “Christmas trilogy”: Christmas Eve and Other Stories, The Christmas Attic, and The Lost Christmas Eve.

This show was, in essence, a Christmas show. In the first half of the concert, they played through The Christmas Attic—this tour represents the first time that they’ve played that album live. Its story, in a nutshell, is this: a little girl explores the attic of her home on Christmas Eve, finds an old chest full of letters including those of a long-lost couple, reads said letters and ultimately reunites said long-lost couple. Aww.

It broke down like this: a huge chest was placed in the centre of the stage, and it opened up to reveal most of the band within it. Then, one vocalist would do spoken-word pieces between the songs, talking about the letters the little girl was reading, and then the band would launch into a song that illustrated the letter in question.

Step one: place chest on stage.

Step two: slowly open chest…

…to reveal band.

Step three: add spoken word.

Step four: fire.

There’s more to the story of The Christmas Attic, and there are strong Christian overtones to it, too. If you want to read the whole thing, it’s here. To be honest, I could’ve done without the religious stuff, as I find it irksome (to put it politely), but I ignored that and enjoyed the show nonetheless.

TSO is a progressive rock band with parts of an orchestra: there are two guitarists, a bassist, a drummer, an electric violinist, two keyboardists, a string section and about 10 vocalists, either singing lead or as part of a choir. And that string section—they’re from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. So TSO was playing with TSO. We all had a chuckle at that when they mentioned it.

As the show progressed, I noticed quite a bit of ’80s-style guitar wankery, which made me wonder what these musicians had done before TSO. Turns out some of them were in Savatage, a prog-metal/power-metal band that was prominent in the ’80s and early ’90s. I’ve heard of Savatage, but can’t say that I’ve listened to them. But, wankery aside, I do love hearing call-and-response between singer and guitarist and I love guitar harmonies, and at one point they did both simultaneously. That was pretty cool.

The second half of the show was comprised of TSO’s classics. There was still a Christmas theme happening, but it wasn’t too strong. At times, the guitarists and violinist ran out into the crowd, going up the stairs on the 100 level and interacting with fans. There were a few points during the show where they would strap themselves into some raised platforms that would go out high above the crowd and rotate.

One set of raised, rotating platforms.

Lasers!

They also did some pieces of classical music (e.g., Beethoven, Liszt; some of that took the form of a keyboardist duel) and other carols, or really, their heavier versions of carols, e.g., “Carol of the Bells”—they ended the show with that one.

The show was full of video and smoke and fire and sparkles and lights and lasers, plus they did a brief cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir,” and they topped it all off with fireworks at the end! For two and a half hours, it was pure rock-and-roll spectacle.

And now, a sample of TSO’s music. If you were on the Internet in 2005, you’ve probably seen this video. This is “Wizards in Winter”:

(Originally posted on mississaugalife.ca.)

I Can’t Believe I Ate the Whole Thing

The Spirit of the City—MississaugaLife team had a chance recently to check out the new Ontario location of west-coast chain Browns Socialhouse, and boy, did we ever. Folks, this was a marathon performance of eating and drinking, the likes of which might shame some in an aftermath of guilt. We had no such aftermath.

Let’s set the scene first: it’s a trendy looking place, upscale-ish, but comfortable. The tables are roomy enough. It’s like they’re going for the Jack Astor’s vibe, but without the noise and big flashy screens, which, while OK, can sometimes be annoying. There’s music, but it’s at a level where you can hear it if you concentrate; it’s there more to provide some white noise. The whole point of this place is, as the name implies, to be social; you can hear each other here without having to yell. That’s a good thing.

We started off with a sampling of drinks and appetizers. First, the Social Lager and Social White and Red wines. These are drinks specifically made for the restaurant; a house beer and two house wines. I’m a fan of stouts when it comes to beer, but this lager was light and crisp; it matched well with our upcoming food choices. The white wine had an odd coconut smell to it, but was nice. The red had a much drier bite than I was anticipating, but it was good too. I guess. I don’t yet know enough about wines to really tell.

After that were martinis: the Cucumber Martini (which I hated; sorry guys, it did nothing for me) and the cleverly Reservoir Dogs named “The New Mr. Pink” martini, which was much better. It was a raspberry martini, sweet and tangy. Bellinis followed, which were even sweeter, heavy on the peach. Those are all well and good, but that’s Hangover City just waiting to happen, isn’t it? I’m glad I stuck to my beer.

Then, the food. Here’s where it gets really good.

General Tao’s chicken

Chicken tacos and the dragon roll

First up, four appetizers: chicken tacos, fish tacos, a dynamite roll, and General Tao’s chicken. The dynamite roll would be much better if they used less rice, but the General Tao chicken was amazing. You know how some places make this dish with fatty bits of chicken, and some pieces are good and crispy and others make you question what you’re eating? This was nothing like that: every piece was lean chicken breast, and it was crisp with just a touch of heat, nothing crazy. I could’ve devoured that plate and a second one like it in no time, but UGH, sharing. I mean, er, go team!

But then there are the tacos. Holy crap in a hat, the tacos. Now those were fantastic. Just an explosion of flavour: chipotle chicken, pickled onions, a cilantro cabbage slaw with lime sour cream, plus a small bit of pico de gallo (which was as sweet as if they’d grown the tomatoes in their backyard; and for all I know, they did). The fish was largely the same, but replace the meat with a lime pepper grilled halibut. I would go back for those in a heartbeat.

Tahitian tuna salad

Blackened chicken kale Caesar

Roast beef French dip sandwich

Next was the second round of appetizers, which were really entrée samples that we all split (pictured above, L–R): the Tahitian tuna salad, the blackened chicken kale Caesar, and the roast beef French dip sandwich. The tuna was quite good, with its lemongrass crust—and I generally don’t like tuna. But it was the beef dip sandwich that stole the show this round. Wow. Lots of thin slices of beef, a generous portion of grilled onions, and a great thin gravy to go with it. One thing I don’t like is soggy bread, or sandwich bread that can’t stand up to the ingredients it houses. I like my bread crunchy or crusty, and this bread was nicely toasted and held its own, even when you dipped it. It was a hell of a sandwich.

Sounds like a lot so far, huh? Well, there’s more.

Steak sandwich

Chicken and shrimp pad thai

#28 Dragon Bowl

Fettucine carbonara

Hickory burger

The mains. (Pictured above, L–R): Jay got the steak sandwich, Jordan ordered the chicken and shrimp pad thai, Sarah grabbed the #28 Dragon Bowl, Alicja got the fettuccine carbonara, and I ordered the Hickory Burger. I always try a similar burger when I visit a new place, for the sake of comparison. Everyone’s dishes were great, but this is my review, so let’s get to that burger.

Chef Chris and General Manager Gary. They’re not this purple in real life.

According to Gary, the general manager (whom we met along with head chef Chris), they have very little freezer space in the restaurant, so, for example, the burger meat is always fresh-ground chuck. That’s one checkmark for me. It’s seasoned only with salt. Another checkmark (because if the beef is good, you really don’t need any other seasoning). They also griddle-smash the beef, which is huge: it sears the meat, gives it a nice char/crust, and locks the juices inside. Three for three so far. Lastly, the meat-to-bun ratio. The patty was a bit smaller than other places, but its size helped balance the flavour of the sandwich. Nothing was overpowering; it all worked together.

Next, the bun is brioche, which is good because a brioche bun can take on beef juices or other condiments (like the great BBQ relish they added to it) and it won’t fall apart; that’s a big deal for me. As much as I love places like The Stockyards (still my #1 burger in the GTA) and The Burger’s Priest and the like, they could both be better served by having stronger or denser bread. By that same token, this burger wasn’t as juicy as the other two places I just mentioned, but it was very good, tasty, and a lot cleaner, i.e., I didn’t have grease running down my elbows.

The Hickory Burger comes with cheddar, bacon and barbecue sauce, and I think there was also a house-made mayo, too. It would’ve been better with some crispy onions, but I had no complaints. In fact, I ate that burger like the appetizers didn’t even happen.

Ye Oreo jar

Oreo jar, aftermath

While the rest of my colleagues were happily complaining that they were way too full, my Italian genes kicked in and said, “Pfft, you call that eating? This is an afternoon snack! You’re all weak! BWAHAHAA!” (Don’t worry folks, I paid for my hubris the following morning.) But then came dessert and suddenly no one was full anymore. How could you be? It was an Oreo Jar, i.e., a small mason jar filled with Oreo cheesecake, whipped cream and topped with an Oreo cookie. I mean… I just… I can’t even… oh good lord. You know how in a cartoons, you might see a school of piranhas skeletonize a tasty morsel in a feeding frenzy? I want to say we weren’t that bad… but we kind of were. Maybe I’m exaggerating.

I turned into this guy for a sec.

All in all, it was a spectacular meal. Give this place a try, dear readers. We loved it, and we think you will too.

Browns Socialhouse
2525 Hampshire Gates, Unit #2B, Oakville
905-829-2727

(Originally posted on urbaneats.ca.)

Face Value

Is the Apple Watch worth it?

The tech world is buzzing about smartwatches. If you want to wear your tech, you can already choose from the Samsung Gear Neo 2, the Pebble and the Sony Smartwatch, to name a few. But everyone’s waiting for Apple’s version.

The Apple Watch is due for release in early 2015. Beyond the base model, it will also come as a durable model (Apple Watch Sport) and a luxury model (Apple Watch Edition) made with 18-karat gold. No word on official price just yet, but the base model is speculated to cost $350.

What Does it Do?
It’s loaded with apps, such as messaging, weather, Siri, music, email, Apple Maps, calendar, Facebook, health and fitness, an extension of your iPhone camera shutter, an extension of your iPhone call function (via mic and speaker), retail applications through Passbook and Apple Pay, and more to come. Oh yeah, and it’s also a watch.

The Apple Watch also employs haptic feedback technology. App notifications are delivered via gentle vibration, and if you wanted to, you can subtly get a fellow Apple Watch wearer’s attention by tapping on your watch, which will then vibrate silently on theirs; could be handy.

The downside to many of these apps is that you’ll need to tether the watch to your iPhone to get the most out of them.

Aesthetics
If there’s one thing Apple is good at, it’s turning tech into eye candy. This device is a beauty. I’m a fan of the customizable watch face; why be stuck with one design or set of data when you can change it on the fly?

Some people are complaining about the rectangular design, but I quite like it. It has the classic look of your dad’s watch of yesteryear, which belies the impressive and sophisticated technology within. To further customize the look, you can easily change the wristband. Every additional touch of customization will help Apple sell more of them.

Interface
There’s a touchscreen, of course, but a lot of the interaction with the device happens through what Apple calls a “digital crown,” which is a fancy term for the winding knob on the side. You’ll navigate through the apps with this—the device is just too small to make the traditional pinch-and-zoom interface practical. It’s also the home button, and there’s another button beneath it, which is used for conversations with other Apple Watch users.

So What?
The larger question here is: do we even need smartwatches? They might be convenient, but I haven’t worn a watch in years—once I started carrying a smartphone, the need to wear a watch just vanished. I’m a little torn on this: on the one hand; it’s new tech and I can’t help but squeal in delight; on the other, my smartphone is sitting right there. Is it really that much of an “inconvenience” to take this frankly marvellous piece of technology out of my pocket?

Something else to consider is that you have to charge the watch. It may be called a watch, but make no mistake, this is a tiny computer and it needs the juice. It likely won’t last more than a day without charging it. I can see that being somewhat annoying; as if we don’t have enough devices to charge already.

Verdict
I don’t think the Apple Watch will make the same impact on our lives the iPhone did, as much as Apple wants it to. It’s a fun gadget, but I don’t see much practicality in it yet, especially because of its overreliance on pairing with an iPhone for functionality. The smartwatch market is still emerging and needs to justify its existence; maybe the Apple Watch will do that. If anything, I think it will find a home among some technophiles, some early adopters, and certainly among the Apple faithful.

But it sure is pretty.

(Originally posted on mississaugalife.ca. The print version originally appeared in Spirit of the City/Mississauga Life, issue 28, 2014; the PDF of that is available here.)

3 Brewers

Five different beers, same (great?) taste.

A good friend of mine currently lives in Barrie, possibly as penance for sins in a past life, as far as he knows. He wants to come back to the GTA, but for the moment he’s in the Land of Unending Snow Squalls. When he does come down ’round these parts, it’s usually for a special occasion—his birthday, for example, which was this past weekend. So my friends and I were excited to hang out with buddy, and after some deliberation and weighing of options, we settled on 3 Brewers (Oakville).

According to their site, 3 Brewers began in France in 1986 and have since expanded to Canada. There are five locations in Southern Ontario: Ottawa, Kanata, two in downtown Toronto and the one in Oakville. Their whole thing is that they’re a microbrewery and restaurant, so they brew their beer on-site. It’s local, it’s fresh, etc., all the things you’d expect from a good microbrewery, right? So what’s a guy to do when it’s a friend’s birthday and he doesn’t have to drive for once and there are a few new beers to try? Start with a flight, of course.

I tried the “Et Cetera” (their word for a flight) with their four standard beers: white, blonde, amber, and brown. They’ve also got a neighbourhood beer which is unique to the location (theirs was a cream ale), and a beer of the month (a pumpkin ale). Here’s the part where I tell you that I was unimpressed.

Full disclosure: when it comes to beer, I prefer stouts, porters, cream ales and the like. I like my beer to be lighter, less carbonated, and with a thicker mouthfeel. And even though I don’t really like bitter flavours as a general rule, I like the strong flavours of stouts. The beers I had in front of me were nothing like that, and they were considerably hoppier than I like. But fear not, dear reader, for I soldiered on through it.

The problem wasn’t even really that they weren’t my preferred kind of beer; I’m up for trying new things. It’s that despite being different, they pretty much all had the same flavour profile—at least, I thought so. Perhaps a beer connoisseur will pick up on the more subtle variations in taste than I will. Of the four, I’d say the blonde and the brown were the better ones. The white was a little cloudy and reminded me of a wheat beer, which I’m not generally a fan of, and I have yet to find an amber that I really like. The blonde tasted like a standard beer, if a bit hoppy, and the brown came the closest to the flavours I like. That wasn’t bad.

After the flight, the food came, and it was quite good. We split a bunch of appetizers (potato skins, onion rings, garlic bread, mozzarella sticks) and while there was nothing out of the ordinary about those (except for the strangely too-firm sour cream; seriously, you could’ve mortared brick with it), there was nothing bad either. There were also fish and chips and everyone seemed to like those, too. No complaints there.

Not one to give up, I decided to go for the cream ale, but given the experience with the flight, I figured a half-pint was the prudent choice. It was. The cream ale was better than the other four beers, easily, but it still had a too-similar flavour profile when compared to the other beers.

Verdict: I wish I could’ve liked this place more. It has a good rep, the food was good, it was clean and well-decorated (just a good-looking place all around), and our server was wonderful. For me, it failed on the beer, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I won’t go back—I just won’t have beer next time.

3 Brewers (Oakville)
2041 Winston Park Dr.
289-813-2239

(Originally posted on urbaneats.ca.)

[UPDATE: Looks like 3 Brewers is opening another location in Mississauga, in Heartland.]

Constantine

I watched the first episode of Constantine, and here’s what I’ve got to say about it.

I love comics, and one of my old favourites is Hellblazer, published by Vertigo, the mature readers’ imprint of DC Comics. Three weeks ago, DC launched a new TV show, Constantine, based on the series. You won’t find new issues of Hellblazer in your local comics shop at the moment, though; DC ended the series with #300 and re-launched it under the title Constantine, presumably to match the show title and make it easier for TV viewers to find the books, if they’re interested. For the record, Hellblazer is a way better title.

Now some of you may be thinking, “Constantine? Isn’t that that wretched film they made with Keanu Reeves nine years back?” Yes. Yes, it is. That film was something of an abomination. You are to ignore it. Instead, if you like occult horror, have a look at Constantine; it’s a far better rendition. Matt Ryan plays the titular character, John Constantine, an arrogant, chain-smoking, hard-drinking occultist/exorcist/magic-user-guy who knows how to handle a demon or two, and is tormented over the fate of the souls he couldn’t save—including his own.

People who get close to him tend to die horribly, you see.

Ryan does a good job of portraying Constantine. He’s got the right swagger, he’s British (which is important to the character—y’hear that, Keanu? (although to be fair, if you heard Reeves’ English “accent” in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, perhaps we were all done a service when they made him play Constantine as an American)); he feels right. That might be more important to Hellblazer fans than non-fans, but as long as he stays true to the spirit of the character, I’m good.

It’s at the 10:00 time slot, so the show can get away with being a little more horrific and such. Yet the chain-smoking is mysteriously absent. Apparently blood, guts and demons are OK, but a cigarette? Perish forbid! Think of the children!

A face only a grandmother could AAAAAGHHH!!

That may sound like something of a comic-fan-only rant, but Constantine’s smoking actually plays a large role in the books: if you’re damned to hell, you don’t want terminal lung cancer. I hear that you sort of see hints of it in later episodes (stubbing it out on his shoe, a cloud of smoke over him; you just don’t see him actually smoking), so maybe this isn’t that big a deal.

There are some genuine scares in the show—at least I thought so. Admittedly, I don’t do that well with horror; maybe I jumped at something that horror aficionados would sleep through, I don’t know. But it’s got some creepy moments for sure.

“Dead by dawn! Dead by d–” Oh wait, wrong story.

I’ve only watched the first episode so far, and that was last night, so it’s possible my opinion is still somewhat laced with fanboy enthusiasm—because, I have to admit, it’s pretty awesome to see John Constantine on screen—and maybe viewings of subsequent episodes will change my mind. But for now, it looks good. I’ll keep watching. I’m cautiously optimistic.

p.s. Nerd moment: they showed the Helmet of Fate!

(Originally posted on mississaugalife.ca.)